abiku

Tag Archives: abiku

Features, Stories and Poems, Submission February 18, 2019

Abiku | Olowogboyega Olumuyiwa | Fiction

The tour guide had begun by saying, “Traditional African art is characterized by fear, that’s why most of our statues are ugly. European art is characterized by beauty.” The rest of the class giggled as they moved on; a happy, laughing lot trailing the tour guide. I remained transfixed, staring at carved figures as […]

ADUNNI By Ayodele Olofintuade — Episode 8, The End

The idea that a person would desire death is insane. But an Abiku is not like us. Having to stay on earth without the possibility of dying young is an Abiku’s worse fate. In the past seven weeks, we’ve watched as Adunni—our beloved Abiku—struggled to turn around the misfortune of being born into the Lamorin […]

ADUNNI By Ayodele Olofintuade — Episode 1, Our Father

ADUNNI is an 8-episode series about an Abiku—a spirit-being in Yoruba mythology that is born into the human world, dies, and is then reborn in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. In the first episode, Adunni has just been reborn into the Lamorin family. Her fellow spirit-beings are keeping her company during her naming […]

The Beautiful One Has Not Yet Died — An African Story Ensemble

Abiku is the Yoruba word for a caste of spirit beings strangely bound to death. They are born to life as human children but die soon after their birth only to be reborn for yet another cycle of death and rebirth. Though ageless and immortal, Abikus appear to the human eye as children beautiful beyond […]